


Recalibration

by Belladonna_Q



Category: Blade Runner (Movies), Blade Runner 2049
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Massive Blade Runner Spoilers, Prostitution, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Violence, fix it story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-01-16 19:36:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12349293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belladonna_Q/pseuds/Belladonna_Q
Summary: Chapter 1 is a stand-alone fixit. Expanding chapters to be added.Takes place directly after the ending scene of Blade Runner 2049.





	1. Freefall

There’s a cold, sad memory that spurs to the forefront of his mind as he waits to die.

Another that he’s not sure is his own.  

“Hey—“

He stood upon a tall, tall bridge, with endless icy, empty fields before him and beneath, a partially frozen lake. In his hand, a small, smooth stone. Stinging wind whipped across his face as he hung his hand over the railing and dropped the stone onto its surface. The ice cracked, the rock piercing and sinking to unknown depths.

“Joe.”

It was then he wondered what it would feel like to be in freefall.

“ _Joe_!”

It probably felt something like this.

“Oh God damnit.”

_Dad?_

No.

He is grabbed and pulled—or maybe pushed—up, up, up until he groans involuntarily, the split in his side protesting at the sudden motion.

“What the hell are you doing, huh?” There’s indignant venom in Rick Deckard’s rough voice. It registers to K as alarmed concern, but that doesn’t make sense. He finds he doesn’t like that tone coming from Deckard. At all.

“I’m fine.” He manages, but he can taste fresh blood in his mouth. His head swims.

A hand releases his arm—pulled up from the stairs then—and K brings his eyes up, squinting, to Deckard.

“The hell you’re fine! You lie to me, huh Joe?” Definitely alarmed concern, the man’s eyes are wide and focused. Angry. “Tellin’ me you’re ‘okay’ only to bleed out on the steps? Is that what you want?”

Yes.

_When they’re done with you they keep you in a cell. CELLS._

_Cells._

“No,” he coughs as softly as he can and swallows. It tastes like polluted iron. Bitter. He motions, “Go…Go see your daughter. I’m just. Having a rest.”

Deckard pauses and looks utterly unconvinced, and K watches the man’s throat tighten and bob, working out what to say next. K tries to process—empathize—what Deckard is feeling. What he is thinking. There’s too many emotions to cycle through. He doesn’t know.

“I did.”

“And?”

Deckard’s eyes light and after a controlled pause. “She’s perfect.”

K nods. His teeth clench and he doesn’t know why. “Yeah.”

He has to look away, and finds solace in the endless, icy fields ahead, beyond the building. He wonders if there’s a frozen lake out there somewhere.

“Joe. C’mon, let’s get you inside.” Deckard’s voice is laced with quiet pleading. But he knows.

He knows K isn’t going anywhere.

“Your daughter—“

_Did they teach you how to care. CELLS._

_Cells._

“She’s… kind.” K states carefully. “Thoughtful. Gentle.” Someone _gentle_ in this world. What a fucking marvel. “I don’t see her leading a resistance of replicants through a violent revolution. That isn’t her.”

Deckard smirks, the corner of his lip curling up as he turns his gaze to the sky. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I’m being practical. Freysa wants to show her to the world when the time is right, but who makes that call? You? Her? Ana? Ana who barely knows who and what she really is? What she means? This is a grenade that will break the world Deckard, you can’t just pull the pin and then walk it back when things go to shit.”

A sardonic chuckle. “All or nothin’ for you, huh.”

His temple is bleeding again, he can feel it drip down his face like beads of sweat. K tucks his sleeve under his chin, wiping his cheek discreetly with his coat. He hurts. Everywhere, he hurts. He nods.

Deckard is watching him, and K wants to throw off the concerned look as if it were a physical touch.

“Let’s have someone take a look at you, huh?” It’s the quietest, most persuasive voice Deckard has had with him, but it makes K bristle none the less.

“Go inside and get me some Glue, and I can handle it.” He lies.

_Please. Please leave him alone here._

“ _’Glue’_?” Deckard sounds scandalized, his placating façade beginning to break. “You’re white as a sheet and bleeding out. You need stitches, at a minimum. I’m even thinking surgery.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” horrifically, his throat catches and he swallows it down.

_A father holding his newborn child. INTERLINKED._

_Interlinked._

“Joe—“

“You don’t have to call me that,” K interrupts, rubbing the back of his hand against his knuckles, smearing snowy flecks turning pink against his skin. He can feel the blood soaking through his pants, beginning to stiffen in the cold. He tries to wipe the sensation from his mind.

“What? ‘Joe’?” Deckard sounds exasperated and mildly irritated. K prepares himself to hear a harsh quip or sarcastic remark, but none comes.

He can’t look at the man, so he focuses his sight up, up, up into gray nothingness. It feels soothing, his mind defragging the echoing static. “Yes. It wasn’t...” _Real?_ “It’s. It’s ‘K’. Just ‘K’. Please.”

“Alright,” Deckard exhales sharply from his nose, as loud a disapproval as K had ever heard. “So what changed about that?”

“Nothing changed.”

“Don’t lie to me again.” The tone stings. “What’s this about, hm? Going out like a martyr? An existential crisis about what it means to be ‘human’? You aren’t the first, and won’t be the last. And a serial number don’t cut it. Do you understand? Not for you.”

 _Not for him._ What does that even mean? He wants this conversation over, so he nods in agreement. Anything to be left alone. Deckard grunts, displeased regardless.

There’s silence as the snow falls, pebbling the steps and swirling in the air.

“You know, I’ve been here before.”

K opens his eyes at Deckard’s gruff-soft voice. He hadn’t even realized he’d closed them. He's hunched now over his knees, breath heavy in his chest.

He glances behind him, toward the building, eyes reading the signage. “Here?” He asks quietly. He’s so, so tired. He wants to sleep.

“No. _Here_.”

K slowly looks up at Deckard. The man is slowly pointing to himself, then to K, and back to himself again.

“I’ve been _here_. With another not unlike yourself. The difference is he fought like hell to live but he never stood a chance and...” He drifts off not unlike the nearby flurries, eyes wandering in thought. “Well, here you have a chance…and yet you want to die.”

_Do you long for an ending? INTERLINKED_

_Interlinked_.

“Dying for a cause is the most human thing someone can do.”

“And who fed you that horseshit?”

K barks a laugh unexpectedly, feeling a sharp sting at the corners of his eyes. He winces and coughs, ribs aching, and shakes his head. His smile sad and small. It’s once again so quiet, he can hear his eyelashes smash together.

Deckard approaches, snow crunching beneath his shoes. He kneels at the steps beside him and reaches, carefully touching K’s knee, and the replicant startles at the contact. It’s slow and awkward but wholly significant in an indescribable way.

K can feel himself begin to shake apart but he blames it on the cold.

_Joe._

_You’re special._

_A real boy._

_I love yo-_

_What am I to you?_

_To strangers.  
_

None of it was real. None of it.

"I don’t know what else to be.” K hadn’t meant to say it out loud and Deckard’s face draws serious. “I could die for them. For… her. And it would mean something. It would mean I _did_ something.”

Deckard is already shaking his head halfway through his words. “Not today. Do you hear? Not. Today.”

That horrible, unfamiliar sting is back inside his chest, at the corner of his eyes.

_Do you feel there’s a part of you that’s missing?_

He nods.

A firm hand closes around his wrist and pulls him to his feet.

 _INTERLINKED_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend Reapersun drew the fanart.. Thank you! ;-;


	2. Stitched

K dreams a memory. A real one. One of his very first ones.

He was told he had a home. It was small and bare, but it would be his.

Joshi had delivered him personally after he was assigned to her that same day, walking with the hard stalk of confident cadence that made her seem invincible right up the steps of the flat that was now his. He trailed behind her, head bowed, the building utterly silent despite the dozens of denizens loitering its dirty halls. Perhaps at the time Joshi thought she was doing him a kindness, but it just made what he was obvious.

They all knew.

 _Fuckin’ skinjob_ was hissed in his ear as he took the final step, spat out like a poisonous slur.

“This is you,” Joshi began to unlock the door. He knew she had heard but she was unruffled. They entered the flat, dim and cold. She turned and placed a key into his palm.

“Thank you, Madam.”

She had smiled without teeth. “I’ve budgeted you some funds. Buy some things. Make it feel more like a home, alright? After that, you earn your bonuses. Got it?”

“Yes, Madam. Thank you, Madam.”

“Atta boy,” she stepped away and crossed her arms, sizing him with scrutinizing eyes. Her hair was longer then, pulled into a loose ponytail. He always wondered why she’d cut it. Maybe because long hair made her seem softer. Maybe in this city, this world, softness was unacceptable.

Too late to ask her now.

“They build you out young, hm?” She had said. “I was expecting something… something more seasoned. You know?”

K didn’t. Not understanding how to respond, he’d stood there. Waiting.

“Do you—Right… Well,” she’d huffed a laugh, and the high parts of her cheeks had blushed pink. At the time he didn’t understand her bio-response. He thinks he does now.

She’d cleared her throat, face drawing stern and official. “Your start date is in twenty-four hours. You’ll have your first baseline with us, copy?”

“Yes, Madam.”

She’d turned away but paused, seemingly on the cusp of leaving or staying. Then she shook her head to herself and left, the door making a hard _click_ upon her exit.

He had turned and walked into the empty space. Rain pebbled the living room windows, splashing neon lights, reds and blues, onto the floors. He could hear the angry, alarmed chatter in the hallway jolt to life as Madam left. The _bang_ of a fist had struck across his door. He opened his palm and looked at the key.

It was a home. It was small and bare, but it was his.

He had smiled.  

* * *

 

_Do you see yourself surrounded yet safe? INTERLINKED._

 

* * *

 

“Interlinked.”

“Oh! You’re awake. H-he’s awake.”

The voice is female. Surprised inflection is human. K opens his eyes.

There’s a hand suddenly around his bicep, firm and steady. It doesn’t alarm him, which in a sense, alarms him. He looks up.

Deckard. His face is grim but he releases his grip. “You grayed out there for a bit. Might’ve been for the best,” he gives a nod to the woman. Her white scrubs, plastic apron, denote physician of some kind. Her gloved hands are bloodied. His blood.

“She’s patching you up, okay?”

K nods, relaxing onto the table. “Okay.”

“Do you uh,” Deckard struggles for the words, looking uncomfortable. “Do you need anything? Uh—a drink or...drugs or—“

“I’m fine. It’s fine.”

“Alright then.” And Deckard leaves.

Observing himself being stitched with care by someone is both fascinating and surreal. He has no memory of this, either real or implanted, and it puts him on edge. Though he tells himself he’s safe, for now, within Dr. Stelline’s facility, he still waits for rough hands to grip his body with impatient, cold detachment.

 _“I’m not paying for that_ ,” is what Joshi had said and K hadn’t wanted her to. Hadn’t wanted to go to the Repair Ward to have his body stapled, scraped and scolded. He preferred going home and doing it himself with Joi’s concerned, watchful eyes nearby. There in the quiet, he could fantasize it was her small, delicate hands smoothing over him.

But these are different hands. Real and warm. Deckard is back and watching. K is deliberate in his neutral expression. Even when the needle pierces his bruised, split skin again and again, he doesn’t flinch an inch. In the grand scheme of pains he’s felt, it’s practically nothing.

“Almost done,” the doctor says quietly, almost in apology. A quick glance over to her shows how concentrated she is. How careful in her touch. The coarse, black bio-wire weaves in and out of his skin with precision. K imagines this is how a person would treat a treasured ragdoll, keen to get it gently mended and threaded back to whole.

Deckard is in the corner, ankles crossed with a ceramic drink in his hand. He has new, dry clothes and a fresh shave. A brown jacket drapes over his arm. He looks relaxed, calm, but K finds it difficult to mirror. They’re coming, they have to be. He doesn’t know how much time is left.

Deckard is supposed to be dead, to both Wallace and Freysa, and yet the panic lingers.

How is Deckard not concerned about how much time is left? If any?

“Here?” The woman asks, pulling away and glancing at Deckard behind her green-rimmed glasses. K frowns, watching as she points to the inside of his left arm, just above the elbow. Deckard nods.

“What is ‘here’?” K asks, apprehensive.  

Deckard kicks away from the wall, finishing off his drink and using his wrist to wipe his chin. “Your tracking implant. Not at all a coincidence how they found us in Vegas. You’re LAPD property, far as they’re concerned.” He gestures vaguely. “We gotta cut it out of you. We’ll look to reprogram it, make ‘em think you’re somewhere else. Give us some time.”

Oh. K lowers his eyes. He nods.

 

* * *

 

He’s shown to a shower and told to be careful around his wounds. His eyes catch folded clothes near the sink. They’re not his, obviously, but they’re of his sort. Dark and comfortable. Practical. He wants to refuse them, and finds he doesn’t know why. This level of thoughtfulness is causing murky, unfamiliar anxiety to surface. He grits his teeth as he turns on the tap.

The steam loosens his lungs, and he coughs and coughs. In the mirror, he looks at the bandage against his temple, at the sealed bandages on his sides, arms and belly. Purpling bruises etch across his skin and he stares at his reflection until his gaze can linger no longer. He looks so little like the self he thought he was.

_Do you yearn to know your place? INTERLINKED._

“Interlinked.”

In the end, the idea of putting bloodied, filthy things onto his clean body is more than he thinks he can bare. He combs his hair into place with his fingers. He puts on his new clothes. Laces his tactical boots. K clears his throat again and again as his nose and eyes prickle with gratitude.

He exits into the hallway, its bright and clean, and he looks up, up, up high to the skylights, stacked with fresh white snow.

“You ready?”

K about-turns. Deckard stands near a staircase, hands in his coat pockets.

Eager, he nods, despite not knowing what he’s agreeing to be ready for. “I’ll need a weapon,” he says automatically, and Deckard snorts a surprised laugh.

“You don’t know where we’re going.”

K shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. There will be danger. I’m not effective or valuable without a weapon.”

Deckard narrows his eyes, watching him carefully. His mouth sours and downturns. K thinks he looks ...disappointed.

“Look uh—Don’t worry about it. You won’t need a weapon where we’re going right now.” Deckard turns, heading down the steps. K takes a skip and walks quickly after him.

They’re going somewhere. It’s something. Better than something. A mission. A case. A purpose.

“Which is where?”

They reach the bottom, and Deckard motions to a familiar door.

“There’s someone you should speak to. And she’s waiting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this is weird and not what you were expecting... :///
> 
> Comments are appreciated! Thank you for reading!~~


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fanart! 
> 
> Next written chapter coming to chapter 4!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend Reapersun drew me some fanart for this fic. I hope you guys enjoy!
> 
> Next and final chapter coming!

**Author's Note:**

> I had to write this.... Basically for me since I know no one will really read this but if you DO I'd love to hear your thoughts and where you think this should/could go..


End file.
